US Contractors Employed Taliban

[loosecannon]

Time to end this damned disaster

WASHINGTON—A yearlong investigation by a Senate panel has found evidence that the mostly Afghan force of private security guards the U.S. military depends on to protect supply convoys and bases in Afghanistan is rife with criminals, drug users and insurgents.

The Senate Armed Services Committee inquiry, based on interviews with dozens of military commanders and contractors and a review of over 125 Pentagon security contracts, found evidence of "untrained guards, insufficient and unserviceable weapons, unmanned posts" and other failings that put U.S. troops at risk.

More alarming, the report alleges that some local warlords who have emerged as key labor brokers for private security firms are also Taliban agents.

Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.), the chairman of the committee, said failures to adequately vet private security contractors in Afghanistan poses "grave risks" to U.S. and allied troops. The overall lack of proper contractor supervision, he added, poses a fundamental threat to the U.S. mission.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered that all security firms in Afghanistan be dissolved by the end of the year, though that process has only just begun. Coalition officials have supported the effort because of concerns about the private forces, but say the alternative—the Afghan police—isn't yet competent enough to take over the job.

The majority of the private security contractors are Afghan; companies employing them are both international and locally based. The Senate inquiry focuses on the role of Department of Defense contractors, but the State Department also employs private guards.

According to U.S. Central Command figures cited in the report, Afghanistan has more than 26,000 private security personnel, 90% of whom are working under U.S. government contracts or subcontracts.

U.S. Contractors Employed Taliban - WSJ.com

 

[Ringel05]

A yearlong investigation by a Senate panel has found evidence that the mostly Afghan force of private security guards the U.S. military depends on to protect supply convoys and bases in Afghanistan is rife with criminals, drug users and insurgents.

You're saying it took them a year to figure out what anyone familiar with the region knew from day one? That's our Senate at work.

 

[loosecannon]

Pakistan Border Closing Strains Ties As NATO Tankers Burn

can you say Quagmire?

The United States has apologized to Pakistan for last week's helicopter raid that killed Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border. Despite the apology, the key border crossing for NATO's overland supply lines border remains closed and Taliban militants have destroyed more than 100 trucks in the past week. Thousands of other trucks now sit idle, waiting for the main crossing to reopen.

It is over!

 

[loosecannon]

Taliban, Afghan Government (, Pakistan)In Secret Talks To End War

we weren't invited? I am crushed!

Islamabad, Pakistan (AHN) - High-level representatives of the Taliban are in secret negotiations with the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai to end the war in Afghanistan but both sides face difficulties in making concessions.

According to the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, "There are very high-level Taliban leaders who have sought to reach out to the highest levels of the Afghan government and indeed have done that. This is how you end these kinds of insurgencies."

The Taliban leaders alluded to are high-level representatives from the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban organization based in Pakistan, and its leader, Mohammad Omar. Negotiations do not include the Haqqani group, which is closely tied to Pakistan’s intelligence service, and is believed to be the orchestrator of the planned terror attacks on Europe.

Those close to the talks, who requested anonymity, said that any further public description of the meetings would undercut them. "If you talk about it while you're doing it, it's not going to work," said one European official whose country has troops in Afghanistan.

Among the potential roadblocks facing the “secret” negotiations is opposition from a resurgent Northern Alliance, the non-Pashtuns who overthrew the Taliban with U.S. assistance in 2001, and division of the Taliban into "several groups."

There is also Pakistan's insistence on a central role in any negotiations and of the Quetta Shura’s condition of having its leaders join the Afghan government of Karzai as well as the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops on an agreed timeline.

Karzai, on the other hand, expressed his willingness to talk with the insurgents if they renounce violence, sever ties to terrorists and embrace the Afghan constitution.


Taliban, Afghan Government In Secret Talks To End War | AHN

do you see where this is heading?

 

[loosecannon]

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

CIA steps up drone campaign in Pakistan

uh b b b b but wasn't it the drone attacks that caused Pakistania to close the borders to our 1000 mile supply lines?

* WSJ reports US secretly diverting drones from Afghanistan to Pakistan
* US military has lent Predator and Reaper drones to CIA to target terrorists on Afghan border

WASHINGTON: The US military is secretly diverting drones from Afghanistan to escalate a Central Intelligence Agency-led (CIA) campaign against militants in neighboring Pakistan, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

The “shift in strategic focus reflects the US view that, with Pakistan’s military unable or unwilling to do the job, more US force against terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan is now needed to turn around the struggling Afghan war effort across the border,” the journal said.

The report added that, the US military has lent Predator and Reaper drones to CIA operatives to target and bomb militants on the Afghan border, the report said, citing unnamed US officials.

The additional drones helped the CIA escalate the number of strikes in Pakistan in September.

The agency averaged five strikes a week in September, up from an average of two to three per week.

The Pentagon and CIA have ramped up their purchases of drones, but they aren’t being built fast enough to meet the rapid rise in demand, the journal reported.

The report added that, although the US military flies surveillance drones in Pakistan and shares intelligence with the Pakistani government, Pakistan has prohibited US military operations on its soil, arguing they would impinge on the country’s sovereignty.

The CIA operations, while well-known, are technically covert, allowing Islamabad to deny to its unsupportive public its involvement with the strikes. The CIA doesn’t acknowledge the programme, and the shift of Pentagon resources has been kept under wraps, the journal said.

Didn't Pakistan just suffer one of the worst floods in recorded human history? So why are we accelerating attacks on civilians rather than offering basic humanitarian assistance?

This seems to be backfiring, no?

 

[loosecannon]

Shit, meet fan! Fan, shit!

 

[blu]

this has been known forever. we pay millions to the taliban so they won't shoot at us and to protect their opium

 

[uscitizen]

This kind of stuff happens when you partially privatize your military.

 

[R.C. Christian]

OH NO! 10's of millions of your dollars a year go to Pakistan simply so that it can bribe tribal savages to behave long enough until the next U.S. taxpayer extortion payment can be deposited in the phoney war on terror. Cha ching.

 

[R.C. Christian]

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

CIA steps up drone campaign in Pakistan

uh b b b b but wasn't it the drone attacks that caused Pakistania to close the borders to our 1000 mile supply lines?

* WSJ reports US secretly diverting drones from Afghanistan to Pakistan
* US military has lent Predator and Reaper drones to CIA to target terrorists on Afghan border

WASHINGTON: The US military is secretly diverting drones from Afghanistan to escalate a Central Intelligence Agency-led (CIA) campaign against militants in neighboring Pakistan, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

The “shift in strategic focus reflects the US view that, with Pakistan’s military unable or unwilling to do the job, more US force against terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan is now needed to turn around the struggling Afghan war effort across the border,” the journal said.

The report added that, the US military has lent Predator and Reaper drones to CIA operatives to target and bomb militants on the Afghan border, the report said, citing unnamed US officials.

The additional drones helped the CIA escalate the number of strikes in Pakistan in September.

The agency averaged five strikes a week in September, up from an average of two to three per week.

The Pentagon and CIA have ramped up their purchases of drones, but they aren’t being built fast enough to meet the rapid rise in demand, the journal reported.

The report added that, although the US military flies surveillance drones in Pakistan and shares intelligence with the Pakistani government, Pakistan has prohibited US military operations on its soil, arguing they would impinge on the country’s sovereignty.

The CIA operations, while well-known, are technically covert, allowing Islamabad to deny to its unsupportive public its involvement with the strikes. The CIA doesn’t acknowledge the programme, and the shift of Pentagon resources has been kept under wraps, the journal said.

Didn't Pakistan just suffer one of the worst floods in recorded human history? So why are we accelerating attacks on civilians rather than offering basic humanitarian assistance?

This seems to be backfiring, no?

Despite 10 billion wasted dollars a year to fight the phoney war via handouts to Islambad, nearly 64% of Pakistani population believe that the U.S. is their enemy, and they're 100%correct. The real focus is on Pakistan right now, not Tehran.

 

[Douger]

Nothing will change until the monster is destroyed.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3L1uZ3Chtg[/ame]

 

[Kalam]

Pretending to join up with the occupying forces to gain access to their weapons and other resources is a pretty standard insurgent tactic. The mujahideen did that with the Kadyrovtsy in Chechnya.

 

[Douger]

Lemme think for a moment.
A country flies drones over my country and kills civilians.
I suppose it would be correct to call them the enemy.

As a matter of fact if the whore you installed in Pakiland had any balls you'da been nuked by now, but it looks like he's bought.
I wonder if he worked for Chevron like your whore Karzai did ?

 

[loosecannon]

Folks, the war in Afghanistan has hit a wall! It is no longer possible to win.

Quagmire. When your own ally shuts it's borders to your critical supply lines and begins negotiating an end to the war without even including you.....We are being shut out of our own war.

Some sooper power!